Books

Day nine: The Ancient City

An incredible portrait of life in ancient times, centered around how early religion grew into early civic life. 

If you think about the Roman Empire every day and you haven’t read this yet, you should treat yourself. 

It’s so juicy and homey compared to the sanitized and streamlined histories of wars and large scale politics. 

I keep multiple copies in my house to give away so that I don’t end up losing my personal copy. 

The most vivid and human look at life in classical Greece and Rome. Pound for pound my favorite book on ancient times. 

Five stars. Keep the home fire burning 🫡

Day ten: This Kind of War

This is a military history deep cut that I read on @cameron’s recommendation. 

It does a great job giving a granular blow by blow history of the Korean War. It shows the 30k foot view, but also tells lots of stories about the exploits of individual soldiers. 

On top of the detailed descriptive work, the author does an honest and evenhanded job of advancing a core prescriptive thesis. Presented in simplified form:

It’s a bad idea to send doughy, undertrained soldiers into battle lol, especially without sufficient logistical support. Maybe don’t half ass a war?

It’s hard to read this and not find yourself applying the things he says to every war from Vietnam to present. 

This book has some of the flavor of We Were Soldiers Once…And Young in the detailed accounts of action, and it holds up as simple military history. But it’s even more compelling as a thoroughly illustrated essay on the consequences of fighting a certain kind of war. 

Five stars for its class

weird internet kid. helping Creators with /seemore. yapping on /okbanger. curating in /cameron + pdfproject.org | dev + veteran + HBS. 
seemore.tv/cameron 🫡

Dude so glad you got a chance to read it!

Never heard of this!  

I’m a fan of Max Hastings and finally got this off the backlog last summer.  Written in 1987, the book has a great perspective and even interviews PLA soldiers.